PB group wants alcohol-related crime identified

PACIFIC BEACH  Pacific Beach residents who for years have complained about the proliferation of alcohol-related crime are spurring the police department to recommend broad changes as part of a plan to reduce violence across the city.

One suggestion crafted by the neighborhood group calls on the San Diego Police Department to begin specifying whether an arrest or citation involved alcohol. The goal is to build a case for a permitting process in higher crime areas to help recoup the cost of increased law enforcement.

Scott Chipman, a neighborhood activist, first presented the plan in a recent email to the police department’s assistant chiefs.

“We believe that it’s important to find out as a city how much of the crime that’s occurring is alcohol involved,” Chipman said in an interview. “And then we need to figure out what the cost of that is — both for public safety and for the quality of life.”

The push comes as Police Chief William Lansdowne grapples with increased violent and property crime rates across the city over the last year. In Pacific Beach, Chipman and his neighbors have prepared reports showing the comparatively high rate of drunken driving and other arrests.

On Thursday, Assistant Chief Boyd Long told U-T San Diego that he planned to forward a pair of related recommendations as part of his draft violence-reduction plan, which he expects to submit to Lansdowne in the coming days.

The plan takes a three-pronged approach to crime fighting: Using technology to better predict where resources need to be; leaning on more fluid resources in crime-prone areas; and enhanced relationships with the public such as private security firms and taxi cab companies.

Long, who oversaw the beach communities as police captain, called the suggestion to categorize alcohol-related crimes a “timely and good idea.”

“I think there’s merit and I think there’s value in what Chipman is asking for,” Long said.

The police department already assigns extra patrols in areas with thriving bar scenes such as the Gaslamp Quarter, Pacific Beach, North Park and Hillcrest. The officers are tasked with handling some alcohol-related crimes, Long said.

Another recommendation from the assistant chief is to study a possible conditional-use permitting process and whether the department can charge businesses for additional services such as increasing staffing in particular areas. Such permits exist in other cities.

Bar and restaurant owners have not always been receptive to their neighbors’ ideas. Since 2008, a seemingly innocuous proposal to expand the deck of a popular nightclub in Pacific Beach become a flash point that pit residents frustrated with the area’s night scene against some businesses.

Officials have yet to determine how they would log the incidents. The police department last year received about 1.2 million calls citywide; officers were dispatched to 655,000 of them. Each of those calls received a number and ultimately a disposition code: unfounded, no report, report or arrest. For alcohol-involved incidents, officials could mark a call “arrest; alcohol related,” for example.

Other opportunities to specify whether alcohol was involved could come at the scene of an incident.